Brunette, Wild keep Avalanche reeling

DENVER (Ticker) -- Andrew Brunette scored in his 800th career
game and Niklas Backstrom made 35 saves as the Minnesota Wild
recorded a 3-1 triumph over the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday
in a battle of Northwest Division rivals.

Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Benoit Pouliot also tallied and
defenseman Marek Zidlicky notched two assists for Minnesota,
which improved to 2-3-0 in its last five contests.

Facing the NHL's top penalty-killing team, the Avalanche went
0-for-7 on the power play.

"Backstrom has been doing great and our penalty kill has been
really good," Bouchard said. "When you kill that many
penalties, you have a good chance of winning the hockey game.

"That's huge, especially on the road. After that, we tried to
close the game and tried to give them as few chances as
possible. We got in trouble with a lot of penalties tonight,
but our PK did a great job."

Colorado was playing without captain Joe Sakic, who left
Wednesday's practice with a strained back.

Making its first visit to the Pepsi Center since they were
eliminated by Colorado in their Western Conference quarterfinals
last postseason, Minnesota opened the scoring just 3:35 into the
contest.

After Zidlicky was denied by Budaj, Bouchard tapped the puck
just inside the right goalpost for his second goal of the
season.

Pouliot doubled the advantage just over four minutes later.

With Minnesota on the power play, Zidlicky's shot from the left
faceoff circle handcuffed Budaj, and Pouliot knocked the rebound
under his left pad for his fourth tally of the campaign.

Backstrom made the goal stand with a pair of stellar saves. The
Finn denied Ryan Smyth from the doorstep with a pad save with
2:08 remaining in the first period, then stopped a loose puck
after it ricocheted off Eric Belanger 55 seconds later.

"I saw him coming and I was pretty sure Smyth was going to pass.
I cheated a little bit and got lucky that he didn't get the shot
off the ice," Backstrom said of the first save. "Sometimes you
need luck, and we had it today."

Brunette gave the Wild a three-goal cushion midway through the
second period. Untouched at the right post, Brunette accepted a
feed from Antti Miettinen and tapped it into the empty net for
his fifth goal of the season and 196th career.

Tucker got Colorado on the scoreboard nearly 2 1/2 minutes
later, but that was all the Avalanche could muster against
Backstrom.

"A little bit better start to the hockey game would give us the
opportunity to maybe only be only down a goal," Tucker said.
"Then when we do start playing better in the second or third,
we're right there."